Indians of North America -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Folklore; Modoc Indians -- Religion; Modoc mythology
“I will make ice,” said the younger brother. Right away there was thick
ice.
“What will you do with our canoe?”
“I will put it under one of my finger nails.” He did that.
The men, finding their canoes fast in the ice, got out and ran after
the brothers.
The elder brother asked: “What shall we do now?” “I will break up the
ice and those men will drown.” Right away the ice melted. All the men
were drowned, but the brothers and their sister got home safe.
Blaiwas and Kaiutois and a good many hunters lived near the Näníhläs
brothers. One day the younger brother said: “I am going to drive all
the deer in the world into a great pit and keep them for ourselves.” He
had only to think hard and the pit was there and the deer were in it;
not one deer was left outside. That was the kind of man he was.
The hunters wondered where the deer had gone. They couldn’t find one,
and soon they were starving. Maûk lived with the hunters; he scented
the deer to the house of the Näníhläs brothers and found where they had
them shut up. Then the hunters sent Múkus to watch the brothers. He
went to their house, sat down by the fire, and pretended to fall
asleep. The younger brother looked at Múkus’ eyes, ran a stick into his
nose, and put a coal of fire on the top of his head. Múkus didn’t move
or wink. They thought he was sound asleep. They wanted to kill a deer.
When they opened the pit, the deer were scared and made a great noise.
The brothers caught one of them, brought it out of the pit, and
fastened up the place. They killed the deer and skinned it, hid some of
the meat, and roasted the rest.
Múkus saw everything. The brothers thought: “He sees nothing; he is
asleep.”
Múkus went home and told the hunters that five great rocks fastened up
the pit where the deer were. That the rocks were so big that it would
take a great many people to move them, but the brothers rolled them
over the hole by thinking. The hunters found Tcúititi and hired him to
break the rocks. He broke them by flying up to the sky and falling down
against them. He did that five times, and the five rocks fell to
pieces. The deer came out and scattered over the whole world. The
hunters were watching, and as the deer passed them, they chose the
biggest bucks and killed them. The brothers didn’t try again to hide
the deer.
THE BRINGING TO LIFE OF THE WUS BROTHERS
CHARACTERS
Kaiutois Gray Wolf
Wus Black Fox
Ten Wus brothers and ten Kaiutois brothers lived together; they were
kin. Each man had five daughters, except the youngest Wus brother; he
wasn’t married. The Wus brothers had a sister; she was nice-looking,
but she had such a long neck that she couldn’t eat meat; she ate the
neck bones of deer; ate five at a time. Everybody in the world knew
about her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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